Each August, Bard College sponsors a two-week festival celebrating the life and work of a famous composer, along with others of his time. This year it is Jean Sibelius, and one of the remarkable features is that the music chosen excludes the most well-known and perhaps overworked pieces in favor of a wide variety of his other music.

The exception to this was “Finlandia”, Sibelius’ keystone work which launched his career and this first concert. Botstein introduced the tone poem by having the audience sing its well-known hymn before the orchestra started, which turned the subsequent orchestral performance into a personal experience.

Four short pieces from “Humoresques” followed, expertly played by Henning Kraggerud on solo violin, maintaining a cheerful playfulness throughout, with orchestra accompaniment.

The first head scratcher came with Symphony No. 3 in C Major. Maestro Botstein ran a tight ship, with mouse-like skitterings and bursts of non-melody all in perfect sync. A lovely cello quartet hymn in the third movement led to slightly more melodic substance later. This symphony was the beginning of a new, experimental, original style of Sibelius, and is good as a reference point to future works.

A powerfully exciting tone poem,”Luonnotar”, began after intermission with a fine soprano, Christiane Libor singing from Finland’s creation myth, the Kalevala, with a haunting orchestral accompaniment, making one wonder why this piece is so unknown here. The surprise was Sibelius’s skill with the voice. “Luonnotar” features a Virgin of the Air, a seagull, and a Water-Mother as creators of the world – all women, it should be noted.

The tour de force came last, with Symphony No. 5. This is one of his most familiar pieces here, and although it is still enigmatic, one begins to see how the bed of tiny musical scrabbelings, which continue throughout the symphony, are the birthing place of the giant shards of brass melody that emerge and sink back, and eventually expand in power until the whole orchestra is triumphantly singing. Botstein led the ensemble with perfect tempi and marvelously clean playing. In criticism, some of the lesser motivic bursts were not brought out and some phrasings were mechanical, but these comments pale next to the sheer immensity of programming Sibelius’ most difficult yet enthralling music in two short week ends, which itself deserves an award.

The Festival continues until August 21, and is an amazing opportunity to hear this wonderful music, so rarely presented.

One Response

PM writes: “The tour de force came last, with Symphony No. 5. This is one of his most familiar pieces here….”

Curiously, the Philadelphia Orchestra itself performed this very work in Philadelphia back in December. And yet, they did not repeat it here at SPAC. Nor have they ever done it at SPAC. This is one reason why SPAC is so greatly inferior to Bard, Glimmerglass, Tanglewood and Marlboro — it is not run by a musician or music lover.

On a related issue, here’s the sad news about player departures from the Fab Phils: